Let's talk about tripods.
Tripods aren't the most exciting part in photography, but they are very, very important tools
This is a question that keeps coming up
So I decided to make this video to show you the 4 tripods that I own, why I have 4 and how I use them
Disclaimer: I am not associated with any of these brands
I don't have access to all the tripods in the world, only the ones that I can afford buying with my own money
So I'm not gonna be recommending any of these tripods that I own
Over other brands, just because I haven't had the chance to try other brands
There are many options out there when it comes to tripods, at every price point, pretty much.
Some people prefer to have just one tripod, usually a really expensive tripod that they can bring with them
everywhere and that they can use for years. As you can see, I prefer to have different tripods and I'll be using one or another
depending on the situation and I will be using them for years to come as well
Oh, and before I forget, of course
I'm gonna leave links down below to all these tripods that I have, just in case you want to check them out
You might be wondering why I keep saying that I have 4 tripods when you can only see 3
Well, you might have missed this one. This is a teeny tiny one. I bought this one in Chicago
I bought it for my phone initially because I wanted to capture some timelapses of the city
I bought it at Central Camera Store or something like that. It's a very cool camera store in downtown, Chicago
It was very inexpensive. It came with a holder for the phone
I try to use my phone as little as possible these days in the field because it's rather old and the battery doesn't last that long
so I'm using this tripod with my GoPro
This makes for an amazing combo that I just can throw in my backpack
and don't even realize that I have it with me because it's so light
This is what I use when I wanna go really light
digital camera on one hand for stills, and the GoPro with this tripod on the other one for vlogging and
video, so I can both make videos for this channel and I still be able to make images. It's stable
I like it better than the gorilla pod. I used to have a gorilla pod that it was this size. You'll see that
I have a love-hate relationship with gorilla pods, more on the hate side of things since I own this little guy
It's pretty amazing
You can adapt it and adjust it to uneven surfaces the legs and you can even attach it to trees, branches, benches
whatever you can find to put it on. So yeah, totally recommended. I think I paid $10, $15 for this thing
I couldn't find it on Amazon, but I'm gonna try to leave a link down below to something similar to this
Totally, totally recommended.
Let's move on to the second tripod. This is a Fotopro FY-583
This is one of my favorite tripods ever. You need to know where I'm coming from here
I used to use a gorilla pod
and this is where my love-hate relationship is coming from too, For my vlogging camera, for the Sony a6500
That is an amazing tripod. Don't get me wrong. It's very flexible. Like you can attach it to trees and stuff like that
But when you're in the field and there are no trees or rocks that are pretty high
there is no other place for you to put it but on the ground, and the problem with the Gorillapod is that it's a very
very low tripod and all the footage looks like weird, because it's from a very low angle
These videos are not about my face
but I want to show you what I'm doing with another tripod, with my camera, I wanna show you the
environment I'm in, and for that I needed a taller tripod.
For the longest time, I thought that the only option I had was a real tripod like this one or that one
But as I said many times, I carry with me a lot of stuff: I carry my vlogging camera
my analog camera and I carry my digital camera with different lenses, film backs. film stocks, memory cards, filters and all of that
It's a lot of stuff that I have to carry with
So I didn't want to carry 2 real tripods because it would be too much for my back
A few months ago, I found this one on Amazon. It was designed for phones
at least that's what the description says, but I thought I could give it a try because my
a6500 with the kit lens that I was using at the time, it was a very light package
and I thought that this tripod could work pretty much fine with it.
And indeed, it worked just fine and I immediately saw the
advantages of working with a taller tripod. I was able to take
angles or shots that I wasn't able to take before, of me loading the camera or, you know,
operating the camera settings and everything, and I believe that my videos improved a lot at that point
Look at it, it's really small
really compact and it's really easy to expand and set up in the field like this
This one is a little bit beaten up already after one year, but it was $20
And I knew that the quality wasn't going to be the best
but you know, if I have to replace it once a year
I'd be fine with that because it really helps me making these videos much better than they were before
Now, I'm not responsible if you decide to go for this tripod to use with your camera, as I said
the build quality is not the best and this is not the most stable tripod. I've used it in windy conditions
and it was just fine, but you have to be careful and mindful of where you are placing the tripod
and making sure that the surface is stable and even
I've used it for stills as well, it's something that you can always bring with you
even if you're not planning on going shooting or something, just in case
It's really helped me taking long exposures at night with my regular digital camera
Okay, let's move on and talk about the real tripods. This is the Manfrotto BeFree
It's 3lbs or 1.36kg including the ball head
It's $150 and the max height with the column
it has a center column here. With the column extended is
5" or 144cm
It can support cameras up to almost 9lbs or 4kgs
This is the third copy that I have of this tripod
I lost... I forgot the first one in Montana, at Glacier National Park. This image that you are seeing here is the last photo of that
tripod, just minutes before I got in the car and I completely forgot about grabbing my tripod
So yeah, I immediately bought another one because I loved it. And that one I used for years
I brought it everywhere with me. It was the perfect tripod for the camera
I had at that moment, a Sony A7ii
Then I bought the Bronica and I thought that I would have to buy a new tripod because this is rather small
for a camera like the Bronica, but you know what?
I used it for a year, year and a half with the Bronica, big lenses, even the 250mm
It was just fine. It worked perfectly fine for regular photos and for long exposures, this tripod is a champ
As you can see, it has 4 sections and I love that it has these
I think they are called clasps and I love these
I prefer that over the ones that you twist
Because they have just one position and you know it's secure and it's not gonna sink or anything like that
The ball head is pretty simple
It only has one knob that controls both the tension and the panning
The release plate is just okay
Probably not the best one and the center column, one of the cool things about this column is that is reversible.
I've never done it for a real shot
So I don't know if this is the right way to do it, but the idea is this
You can put it like this
You can place your camera here and you can lower your tripod even more all the way down
So you can take like close-ups and macro shots of flowers or stuff like that
But as I said, I've never used it, but yeah pretty cool
I forgot to tell you what happened to that second copy of the Manfrotto BeFree
But after years of use, it finally broke and I don't blame it because I wasn't treating it right
I was just throwing in the car as I said, I used it in the in the sand in the snow
So yeah, it broke and I had to throw it away
I had a decision to make: should I go for my third Manfrotto BeFree or should I be looking at other tripods?
Since I had the Bronica at that moment, I thought that a bigger tripod would be better and that's when I found this one
I was looking for Manfrotto tripods first, because I had all the release plates and everything like that
And I found this one, this is the Manfrotto 055
This is a much bigger tripod, what I loved at first sight about it was that it was much taller
This one can only go to here, it's even lower with the center column extended
of course when you do this
This is much less stable and this one can get much, much higher
Almost to eye level and it also has a center column as well
So I loved that about this one, and I thought that it would be better and more stable for a camera like the Bronica
even though as I said, I had no issues with this one.
And it really is, in my opinion this tripod is a beast
Oh, and by the way before I forget
Both my Manfrotto tripods are aluminum
They are not carbon fiber and that's because the carbon fiber versions of these tripods are twice as expensive
And that is just too much. For example, this one, the aluminum version is 2.5kg
that's like 5.5lbs and the carbon fiber is 2kg and that is 4.5lbs, something like that.
So it's just half a kilo or 1 pound difference
for twice the price. The legs in aluminum are $200 and the ones in carbon-fiber are almost $400
So yeah, that's why I go with the aluminum version.
You can do a lot of cool things with this tripod, for example
The center column can do this, you can move it around and that's pretty awesome to shoot the ground and stuff like that
But the best part about this tripod, by far, is the ball head. The ball head alone is $100
So the total for this combo is $300, $200 for the legs and $100 for the ball head
but the ball head is so worth it, every penny
It has two knobs. This one is for panning so you can take panoramic
images and this one is for tension and you can rotate your camera, and this third one is just to change the
tension of the ball head itself
so it's pretty useful. As I said, I decided to go for this one instead of
my third BeFree for the reasons that I just mentioned
It's a taller tripod and it would be better for the Bronica because it's more stable, and the ball head is just amazing
but after months of using this, and after climbing some mountains with this one on my back
I realized that the weight is very, very, very important, much more important than I thought and that's why
recently, just a couple of months ago
I decided to go for my third Manfrotto BeFree for those situations where I'm going on a hike
I'm climbing a mountain or something like that, because this one is just too much
But yeah, there you have them, as you can see the BeFree is much more compact
There you go. There is no comparison, and this one actually, this is not the way you want to carry it
It has a mode where you can do this
Okay. So this is the difference in size. It's almost twice as big and it is twice as heavy
Let me show you how fast or how slow
You can extend them in the field. So this one is the easiest one. It's kind of fast, actually
Now, this one takes a little bit longer, because as I said
it has more sections and you have to adjust these thingies here to the position you want and
then put the center column down
There you go, and this is it
My final thoughts is that I prefer to have the 4 tripods that I have for different devices and different
situations instead of having just one
bigger or more expensive tripod to fit all my needs, that I don't think that exists
So I use this one when I'm in the car, when I'm shooting from the side of the road, when
I'm going on shorter hikes, and stuff like that. Or at home for product photography
this one I use it on hikes or if
I'm going a short hike and bringing this one, well I can use it for my vlogging camera, but I usually use this one
I use it 99% of the time with my vlogging camera
This is pretty awesome because I can bring it along with me with any of these other two
and it's super light and super compact. Sometimes I use it for stills as well
If I'm not planning on a shot
but just in case I'm gonna shoot something. And of course the small one just for the GoPro and for secondary
footage and other angles, time lapses, and stuff like that
Hope this video was helpful to all of you. If you have any question, please leave a comment down below
Thank you so much for watching, and see you in the next one